Symposia, Institutes & Speaker Series

The Innovations in Undergraduate Education Speaker Series began in Fall 2015. The Teaching Center, CIRCLE, and STEM Departments at Washington University have been collaborating, initially with AAU support, to bring to campus speakers whose work is advancing knowledge of evidence-based teaching. These speakers have included Carl Wieman (August 2016), Stephen Kosslyn (February 2016), and Rick Moog (November 2015). Julie Stanton will speak in November 2016. The focus of this series, which is now being co-sponsored by TIES, began with STEM but has been expanded to higher education more broadly. Additional co-sponsors of the series now include the University Libraries and Arts & Sciences Computing.

In May 2016, The Teaching Center launched a new faculty institute focused on fostering inclusion in teaching and learning. The purpose of the Inclusion and Diversity to Engage All Faculty Institute on Teaching (IDEA FIT) is to spur innovations that can improve the learning environment at Washington University—whether learning occurs in classrooms, laboratories, or studios, or in community-based courses or field-research. IDEA FIT is supported by the Office of the Provost.

The Summer STEM Faculty Institute on Teaching (STEM FIT) comprises three days of interactive workshops and working-group sessions in which faculty collaboratively design a plan to implement and assess evidence-based teaching in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). It features interactive workshops with faculty from across the St. Louis region, as well as working-group sessions during which participants collaborate to design a plan for implementing active learning in a specific course. A STEM FIT Symposium will take place June 14, 2017 from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm. At the symposium, STEM FIT alumni will share their experiences with integrating evidence-based teaching in their courses.

The iTeach symposium is a biennial, one-day event that brings together faculty and instructional staff from all seven schools of the University to share ideas and insights on teaching, and to learn about research on teaching and learning. The next iTeach will take place in January 2018.